snow storm

as mentioned on another post, I'm having a lot of 'fun' with snowstorm at the moment.
As the figure that was a key motivator in my purchase of Rasputina it's important to me that he's as good as he looks.  His effectiveness in the game for his cost is questioned by many and now he's causing all sorts of headaches to put together.

Resin is an odd material to work with.  It somehow manages to feel soft and brittle at the same time.  Removing mould lines with a scalpel is not generally tricky however SnowStorm has a double mould line through his hair.  It's a bitch.  Also the mould lines run down his arms and legs over the whorls engraved in to his body, removing those can, if you are not careful, make the whorls more shallow, be careful not overdo it or you might lose them.  Also, you get mold lines in the hair above his hooves.  Overall then, it seems to me, that he's a bit of a git to prepare perfectly.  This is his head after a couple of hours work.

2 hours work and still mould lines are visible.

If you look at the picture full size you can clearly see the dark line of a mould line, or what's left of it running from his shoulder across his head.  If you look down from that you can just make out a pale line paralleling the dark one.  These lines delineate a raised area on his head of 3 - 4mm in thickness.  It's a real pain to get rid of though easier now I've realised it's one large area not two small lines.

To remove these I am scraping with a scalpel, each hair individually at at least 2 angles.  I have, I think, removed a little too much detail from the hair in a couple of places but nothing that can't be renovated with judicious application of a scalpel or mounted needle.

I understand these issues can arise with these figures and that many people have Snowstorm figures with no blemishes at all, it's just a pity I picked a duff one.

Any air bubbles are confined to the bottom of his feet apart from a coupl eof smallish ones in his arm pit that will hopefully be covered up by his arm. If not some liquid Green stuff will sort it out.

On the positive side, all this preparation time is giving me plenty of space in which to come up with a paint scheme for the crew.  Though I can't see me straying far from the pale Blue/White which seems common, I can use this time to try and think of something original.